


Only Heaven I'll Be Sent To

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bureaucracy, Catch me trying to write a sitcom, Fluff, Human Aziraphale (Good Omens), Human Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Mild Angst, Mistakes, clerical errors, ineffable husbands, spoilers for the Good Place, that’s secretly a bit of a tragic romance, the good place AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-05-14 07:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19268353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Anthony J. Crowley dies on June 6, 2019.He wakes up in a pleasant office, with a handsome man smiling at him and telling him that everything is going to be fine. After all, he's in the Good Place.He's being rewarded for his lifelong service to the sick and dying, for his kind spirit, and good works -- he even has asoulmatehere, a sweet-faced and nervous English professor with a smile as big as his heart, who finds the echo of Crowley's memories to be an ineffable sign of his pure soul.Only problem? Those aren't his memories. There's been a huge mistake.





	1. The Good Place

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to this little AU/crossover!!!

_Welcome!_

_Everything is fine._

Crowley blinked slowly, the words the first thing he was aware of as he opened his eyes after (what felt like) a very pleasant nap. The walls of the room he found himself in were of a shade of beige too yellow to be boring, and too brown to be overly bright. The font of his greeting could have matched his finest plants on the best day, not that he’d ever give them that credit, and he realized he was much too soothed by those words, given how _very_ confused he was.

A door he hadn’t noticed opened, and an impossibly handsome man popped out, wearing a lavender suit that should have looked ridiculous, but instead made the strange violet of his eyes pop all the more.

“Anthony?”

Crowley stared at the man, who really should do commercials or something, he was that pretty, and the man simply smiled wider at his inability to talk.

“Come on in.” The man gestured to the open door, and Crowley stood, surprised when his bum knee didn’t pop like it always did, a remnant of a very poor decision (one of many, to be fair) of his youth.

He followed the Stupidly Handsome Man into a Stupidly Neat and Tidy Office, and sat in the indicated chair.

“My name is Gabriel,” the Stupid Handsome Man said, settling into his plush seat and smoothing out non-existant fly-aways in his shellacked hairdo. “And I bet you have a lot of questions for me.”

His smile was … not quite a smile. More of the sort of patient, kind expression schoolmarms gave boisterous, curious, and messy children. Crowley should have been irritated by the expression, but instead he sprawled out in his chair and glanced around the office, at the strange portrait to Gabriel’s left, at the odd, whirring machines over his shoulder, and then back to the man himself.

“Yeah, uh,” Crowley cleared his throat, “Where am I? And how did I get here?”

“You died,” Gabriel said simply, and Crowley nodded, expecting to feel some kind of upset about the news.

Instead, he felt vaguely hungry. Not enough to be bothersome, but enough to notice. Weird. Didn’t think you could be hungry when you were dead.

“I don’t remember -- how, exactly, did I die?”

“You were at the zoo,” Gabriel supplied. “And a child fell into the lion enclosure.”

A memory flickered at the edge of Crowley’s mind, but he couldn’t latch onto it. It was enough of a glimmer of recognition that he _did_ remember being at the zoo, and he _did_ remember a child.

“You jumped in to save him, and, well…” Gabriel trailed off, clasping his well-manicured hands on the desk in front of him.

“The lion got me?” Crowley guessed, more than a little surprised that’s how he went. Huh. Good for him.

“No, no.” Gabriel’s smile was much more sympathetic now. “You bashed your head in on the railing, never made it to the child.” Crowley nodded. That sounded a little more right. “But, it did distract the lion long enough that they were able to pull the child to safety, so, good for you!”

“Oh, shirt, I was lion food?” Crowley blinked again, and rubbed his jaw. “ _Shirt._ Uh--” Gabriel smiled brighter now -- “Why can’t I say shirt?”

“Because,” Gabriel spread his hands wide, and Crowley thought he might have seen the vague outline of wings sprouting from the man’s shoulders, “You’re in the Good Place, Anthony.”

“I go by Crowley,” he corrected automatically, looking around the office again. He winced, realizing that he just -- “Did I just correct an angel?”

“No, Crowley.” Gabriel’s smile was firmly fixed in place, and it didn’t look forced at least, “I’m not quite an angel. The Good Place doesn’t really work the way mortals think it does -- Heaven, Hell, and all that. The Good Place is where people who led extraordinary lives go, for all of eternity. You get assigned to a neighborhood based on your interests and habits in life, and I am not the _angel_ of this neighborhood. I’m the architect!”

He beamed, and Crowley realized this is where a compliment should go.

“Ah, right. Nifty?”

“Thank you, it is,” Gabriel sighed, standing from his chair and gesturing to the door. “Would you like a tour? We don’t expect any more arrivals today, as we stagger our entrances.”

“Sure.” Crowley stood, reaching out of habit for his leather jacket. He remembered that it probably hadn’t followed him into the afterlife ( _and it was probably sitting in the stomach of that lion, that son of a custard …. Son of a custard… custard...ugh_ ) and then looked down at his outfit.

It was, in a word, dreadful.

***

“So, if this is the Good Place,” Crowley gestured around the outdoor seating vaguely with his spoon, “Is there a Bad Place?”

“Certainly.” Gabriel popped a bite of _Satisfying Work Presentation_ flavored yoghurt (Crowley had stuck with strawberry) into his mouth.

“And what’s that like?” Crowley wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer to that.

“We can’t show you a video clip or anything like that,” Gabriel huffed a laugh and smiled so the corners of his eyes crinkled. It was the first time he’d looked remotely human. “But I can assure you it isn’t pleasant.”

“What does that mean?” Crowley asked queasily.

“Anathema?”

With a sharp popping noise, a beautiful woman dressed in a smart grey suit appeared at Gabriel’s side; Crowley was so surprised by the whole affair that he flung his spoon across the seating area.

“Hello, Gabriel.” Anathema smiled pleasantly. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Hello, Anthony.”

“He prefers Crowley, dear,” Gabriel said off-handedly, and Anathema nodded. “Could you give us a small audio preview of the Bad Place?”

“Of course, Gabriel.” Anathema tilted her head and smiled again in an off-putting way before opening her mouth.

Out tumbled a riotous cacophony of what could only be described as pure fear. Voices melded together in an eternal shriek of agony, begging for mercy that would never come.

Anathema closed her mouth with a snap.

“Thank you, Anathema, that will be all.”

She disappeared with another popping noise, and Crowley stared at Gabriel in shock. “That’s horrifying.”

“Yes it is.” Gabriel scraped the last of his fro-yo from the bottom of his cup, looking far less disturbed than he should. “But it’s not for us to worry about! We’re in the Good Place, after all. It’s quite an honor -- less than 1% of people get an invite. You made it, Crowley.”

“Is there a … so-so place? Like one for people who weren’t awful, but who weren’t … saintly, exactly?”

“Nope.” Gabriel stood and gestured down the street. “There’s someone that I need you to meet, Crowley. And, I believe he’s about to have a spot of free time.”

In an utter haze, Crowley followed Gabriel down the street, through cobblestone alleyways and across a thoroughfare that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Soho. The entire time they walked, his mind reeled.

It seemed that there were two options for the afterlife -- eternal damnation and pain, or, a vaguely idyllic village with endless frozen yoghurt and handsome men in lavender suits and pretty women who appeared on command. Crowley wasn’t sure about anything, but he was absolutely sure --

They came to a stop outside a pretty little cottage on the edge of the village, and Gabriel paused in whatever long-winded story he’d been telling about how he picked the exact stones for the pavement beneath their feet.

“Here we are!” Gabriel pushed the gate open for them, and led Crowley up a path through a gorgeous English garden in front of the cottage. “Home sweet home, or so you humans would say.”

Crowley had said that phrase all of never in his life, but he didn’t want to push his luck.

Gabriel knocked on the blue door, and after a brief pause, wherein Gabriel took a step back and smiled in a strangely smug way at Crowley, the door opened to reveal a man a few inches shorter than Crowley.

“Anthony J. Crowley,” Gabriel said, sweeping a hand between the two. “May I introduce your soulmate, Aziraphale Eden!”

Crowley stared in shock at the other man, who quickly hopped down on the front step, hand extended.

“It’s so good to meet you,” he effused, and Crowley nodded and mumbled something back that was polite. If his -- _soulmate_ ? -- caught onto his discomfort, he didn’t say, but Gabriel pushed them both into the cottage and started talking full steam about soulmates, how Aziraphale had been here for only a few days longer than Crowley, how they were _absolutely_ certain they were _absolutely_ soulmates, and could you believe that luck? Neither one had to wait centuries for the other to kick the bucket auspiciously, and here they were, in the Good Place together, and --

Crowley felt panic tightening in his chest.

“I’ll leave you two alone, then,” Gabriel said, coming to the end of his spiel. He looked between them, smoothing the lapels of his lavender jacket out with a luxurious sigh. “Soulmates! Hooray!”

He was out the front door without another word, and Aziraphale smiled at Crowley, who tried and failed to smile back.

The other man was cute, no doubt about it -- his hair was oddly white-blond, curling over his ears and framing a round face. He wore a slightly outdated tan suit, with a soft, wide bowtie, and his hands, pudgy yet elegant, seemed to never cease moving. A nervous habit, perhaps?

“It is very nice to meet you,” Aziraphale said with a genuine warmth, and Crowley nodded. “Tell me about yourself, please!” He gestured to the small table in the corner of the front room, where tea had obviously been set for two, and Crowley shrugged and looked away evasively.

“Tell me about yourself first, uh, Azira -- Azrophal?”

“Aziraphale.” Aziraphale -- was that his _real_ name? What kind of name was that -- corrected gently, but his smile didn’t diminish. “I was a professor of Literature for some years, and I lectured around the world for most of my professional life. My parents died when I was very young, and I was raised by a kindly group of women who weren’t my relatives, but were certainly my family. I love dogs, but I’m allergic, I don’t quite enjoy most music, but I do love food of all kinds, and … and I tend to have a habit of prattling on, especially when I’m nervous.”

“Couldn’t tell,” Crowley muttered, glaring at the hideous portrait of a clown to his right. “This yours?” He jabbed his finger at it.

“Well, no,” Aziraphale frowned in confusion. “They said it was yours.”

“Mine?” Crowle stared at him in shock.

“Yes, they said … they said you loved … clowns?” Here, Aziraphale’s smile finally faltered, and when Crowley’s glare of incredulity didn’t lessen, he cleared his throat anxiously. “It’s right here, on the welcome screen.”

He waved his hand quickly, and a holographic monitor appeared, displaying facts and data about Anthony J. Crowley.

At first glance, it was basic stuff -- DOB: April 5, 1983. DOD: June 6, 2019. Lived in Scotland and London, height, six foot two, blah blah blah -- and then Aziraphale politely asked the screen to “Show me Crowley’s job.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Crowley said hastily, thinking about the racket he’d participated in on Earth, where he convinced the elderly that he was helping them with their technology, but was really selling them halfway broken, outdated machinery and taking their money without much regret.

Aziraphale turned to him with a confused expression as a video played, from someone’s point of view -- small, sickly looking children in a hospital reaching up for him, and a pair of arms reaching back, all the children laughing and shouting for _Mr. Crowley,_ and a clown in the background, singing and dancing for the children --

“I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to work with such sick children.” Aziraphale placed a gentle hand on his arm. Crowley stood, stupefied. “Or how hard it is to see them again.” He sniffed mightily and dabbed at his eyes with his silk handkerchief. “But, it does my heart good to see how much kindness and light you brought to the world.”

Oh, this wouldn’t go well, not at all.

“You’ve, uh, seen all this?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale blushed in a way that shouldn’t be cute, and should have just irritated Crowley. “I didn’t mean to intrude, but I wasn’t sure when you would arrive, and I - I did want to give you a chance to talk about yourself. I mean, my videos are all fair game, but a lot of them are just...just lectures, nothing at all like what _you_ did, and--”

“Riiiight.” No, this wouldn’t do at all. “So, Azirafill--”

“ _Aziraphale,_ ” the other man corrected a little snippily, adjusting his waistcoat delicately.

“Yeah, that, uh, we’re soulmates, right?” Crowley studied the room around them with a barely curled lip. When he spun back around to look at Aziraphale -- was that some sort of pharmaceutical? -- the man smiled pleasantly at him. Almost enough to make him feel bad.

Almost.

“Right.” He nodded and settled on the back of the couch.

Crowley shoved his hands in the pockets of his chinos ( _chinos._ They put him in _chinos_ like some sad, virginal, grade school teacher who volunteered for the environment on the weekends) and scuffed his feet on the hardwood floor.

“And soulmates protect each other, no matter what, right?”

“Of course!” Aziraphale sat up taller and beamed at him.

“As in, you _swear,_ on our sacred … bond, or whatever, as soulmates, to protect me, no matter what happened, to be there for me, always?”

“Yes, yes I would!” Aziraphale bounced slightly as he clapped his hands together, face alight with the desire to do good.

Hell, Crowley hoped he never looked like that.

“And you swear that if I tell you something, as your soulmate,” he winced slightly at how far he was twisting this knife, but he had to be sure, “That you would never tell another soul -- _including_ Gabriel?”

“I swear it!” Aziraphale stood at that, hands clasped beseechingly, and Crowley nodded, licking his bottom row of teeth, where a seed from the strawberries in the fro-yo had lodged, waiting for the solemnity of that promise to kick in.

“Right. Well.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder where the screen had played. “Those aren’t my memories. There’s been a huge mistake -- I don’t belong here, and I definitely should be down there,” he pointed at the floor and made a rude raspberry of a noise, “I thought you ought to know that.”

Aziraphale stared at him, all color gone from his expressive face. He didn’t say a word.

“Aziraphale?”

Still nothing.

Nothing but wide, blue eyes staring right through him, shock and fear locking up the lines of his body.

“Yeah, that’s about right.” Crowley rubbed the back of his neck and looked around the hellish cottage they’d stuck them in. “So, uh, what’s next?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's next, indeed? 
> 
> thank you for reading!!! I certainly have a vast outline of where this would go -- let me know what you think/if you think this needs the rest of it 
> 
> What would follow:
> 
> Aziraphale trying to teach Crowley to be a good person
> 
> Crowley being himself, and making it very obvious he doesn't belong in The Good Place
> 
> Aziraphale and Crowley falling in love with lots of awkwardness and arguments.
> 
> The confusing, confounding nature of morality, the spiraling, idiotic bureaucracy of the Good Place, betrayals, mistakes, and broken hearts. 
> 
> (Stay tuned?)


	2. The Arrangement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley get to know each other and the neighborhood a little better; a deal is made

“Right. Well.”

Aziraphale had settled at the small table in the kitchen of Crowley’s cottage. It felt odd to think of the cottage as his own - but the Powers that Be ( _did this mean there really was no God?_ Crowley wondered if Dawkins would have a field day with this when he died) had bequeathed this cutesy little shack to Crowley, or at least who they thought Crowley was, in their infinite wisdom.

“This is  - this is a lot to take in, I apologize.” Aziraphale tapped his hands anxiously on the table and opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Um. Tea?”

“I can make some, yeah.” Crowley turned but didn’t see a kettle near the range. “Shirt. Uh - tea would be …”

“Anathema?”

The woman from before appeared in the kitchen, and Crowley staggered back in surprise.

“Hello, Aziraphale.” She smiled peacefully at them both. “Hello, Crowley.”

“Hello, dear.” Aziraphale gave her a timid smile, but nothing on Anathema’s face suggested she caught how forced the expression was. “Could we get some tea, please?”

“Of course.” A soft _bing_ sounded throughout the room, and then Anathema held a pot in her hands. “Is there anything else?”

“A few cups and saucers, I suppose?” Aziraphale seemed to consider something. “Perhaps a spot of sweets? Sandwiches?”

“Of course.” Anathema didn’t blink or move, but another _bing!,_ and the table was set.

“Ah, thank you.” Aziraphale smiled as he gestured for Crowley to take a seat. “Come on, then.”

“Uh.” Crowley walked forward, squinting at Anathema. “...Are _you_ god?”

“Oh, no.” Anathema smiled serenely. “God wouldn’t be here.”

“Is there a God?” Crowley fell into the seat across from Aziraphale, eyes wide with staring.

“That’s classified.”

Aziraphale and Crowley both laughed, but Anathema didn’t crack a smile; rather, she seemed to be waiting patiently for them to stop laughing.

“Do you need anything else?”

“Would you like to join us, dear?” Aziraphale gestured at the food laid out before him, and Anathema shook her head.

“No thank you. I don’t need to eat. I would be unable to process any of what you consider to be food.”

“Are you a robot?” Crowley asked, genuine curiosity coloring his tone.

“You can’t just ask if people are robots!” Aziraphale hissed, and Crowley elected to ignore him, and instead squinted up at Anathema.

“Not a robot,” she answered, unperturbed by the question.

“A witch, then?”

“Anthony!”

“I believe he prefers to be called Crowley,” Anathema corrected. “Also, not a witch.”

“Alright.” Crowley nodded and sat back in his chair, letting his legs sprawl out in front of him. It was rather hard to achieve that particular posture in the ludicrous pair of pants he’d woken up in, but he made it work. “Thanks, Anathema.”

“Good-bye.” Anathema disappeared with another pleasant chime, and Aziraphale sighed, shaking his head at something, frowning at the food before them.

“Are you - are you entirely sure you don’t want to tell Gabriel?” Aziraphale said without warning, and Crowley stared at him. “I only mean - it would - it would be much worse for you if they discovered you were lying.”

“Would it?” Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Nah, I’d rather avoid that confrontation for as long as I can, but thanks.”

“I only mean,” Aziraphale sighed and then grasped the pot. “Tea?”

Crowley held his cup out as the other man filled it, and Aziraphale fussed with the sugar and cream until he sat back in his chair, swirling his spoon thoughtfully in the milky brown contents of his cup.

“I mean - this is the Good Place, Anth- Sorry, Crowley. They’re very kind here, and, and, I can’t imagine they would punish you for a mistake they were responsible for!” Aziraphale looked troublingly earnest, and Crowley couldn’t help the harsh bark of laughter that escaped him.

He regretted it though, when Aziraphale’s eyes shuttered and he looked down; Crowley was too full of nerves to apologize, so he ignored it for the moment. He’d never been much good at apologies anyway.

“Tell me, Aziraphale, did you happen to ask what the _other_ option was?”

“Other option?” Aziraphale selected a small cake and put it on his plate. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you got here, did you happen to ask Gabriel the architect almighty what happens to the suckers who don’t manage to snag an invite to the universe’s greatest party?” Crowley took a gulp of tea and wrinkled his nose. He’d never been a fan of tea; he much preferred coffee.

Maybe he should ask Anathema for some. _If he lasted that long._

“I can’t say that I did,” Aziraphale admitted, looking suddenly troubled as he fidgeted with a small fork.

“Of course not,” Crowley rolled his eyes. “Why would you care? Look at you, I bet you were a real angel back on earth. Why would you ask about the damned and doomed when you’d gotten your own just desserts?”

“Perhaps it’s because I didn’t have any lingering guilt over having _snuck in_!” Aziraphale snapped, and Crowley lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Aziraphale settled and blushed, shockingly. “I apologize. That was - that was very rude of me.”

“Was it?” Crowley shrugged. “I think that was the first time I actually liked you.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale glared at him and then went back to his cake, stabbing it rather brutally.

“It’s alright, you can curse me out.” Crowley tucked one leg underneath him, grumbling at the lack of flexibility afforded by his _chinos._ Ugh. He’d never get over this hellish cotton blend. “You can’t even curse here, so it wouldn’t be very effective anyway.”

“No?” Aziraphale looked up at that.

“I bet you haven’t even tried, have you?” Crowley grinned when Aziraphale stammered in response. “Oh, you really are an angel, aren’t you?”

“Stop it,” the man said firmly, but a hint of a smile played at his mouth.

“Watch this.” Crowley leaned forward over his cup of tea. “Fork.”

“Oh! Sorry!” Aziraphale hurried to hand him some silverware. “Didn’t realize you needed--”

“ _No._ I’m trying to say _fork,_ ” Crowley laughed, his anxiety momentarily forgotten in the presence of Aziraphale’s adorably confused face. “You know, like what two people do when they’re in love, or drunk, or just mad at an ex? _Fork._ ”

“Are you trying to say _fork_?” Aziraphale clapped a hand to his mouth, bright red staining his neck and cheeks. “Oh, forgive me, I didn’t mean to say fork! I mean, not fork, but fork! And -- oh, stop laughing!”

Crowley grabbed a handful of grapes from the tray in front of him and sank back in his chair, cheeks aching from smiling.

It was odd - he’d died, what, today basically? And he’d been in the Good Place for a few hours, literally the best place in the universe, if his assumptions were correct. But this was the first time he felt … happy. Peaceful. It was easy to talk to Aziraphale, no matter how ruffled the other man got by their conversation (and it was apparently very easy to ruffle him), almost as though there might be _some_ stock in the thought that they could be --

He shoved it away viciously. There’d been a huge, cosmic, clerical error in putting him here. That meant _everything_ was wrong, including the assignment of soulmates. It was a ludicrous idea, anyway. No one had ever loved Anthony J. Crowley on earth, or even really liked him: why it would happen in heaven, or whatever this place was, was beyond reckoning.

Aziraphale paused in sipping his tea, setting the cup down on the saucer thoughtfully. “But, what _does_ happen to … to people who, you know.”

“People who don’t make it into the Good Place.” Crowley grimaced. “Well, they do have a Bad Place, I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said I was pretty sure I belonged … down there.” He gestured vaguely at the floor.

“Well, how bad can it be?”

“The architect Gabriel was kind enough to share a preview with me.” Crowley shuddered at the memory, and Aziraphale grabbed another cake. “They clearly are very into eternal torture and misery down there.”

“You can’t go there, then,” Aziraphale said firmly.

“That’s the general idea I had, yeah.”

“And you’re very sure that if we told Gabriel the truth, he’d send you… send you… down there?” He whispered the last two words, and Crowley snorted.

“Pretty positive, angel.” Aziraphale glowered at the term, and Crowley stretched his arms out, pretending he didn’t see it. He scratched at his neck, where the wool of his dark green sweater was starting to itch away at his skin (whoever they thought Anthony J Crowley was, he desperately needed a new wardrobe and a different taste in textiles). “These people … whoever they are, gods, or architects, or whatever: they’re basically accountants. They explain how the system works to you?”

“I watched the intro when I arrived.” Aziraphale placed yet another small cake on his plate, and Crowley watched in amusement as he started to cut at it with his fork and knife. “Points and the value of good works and all that. I wasn’t sure how _I_ managed to get their attention, but I was assured that my contributions to academia and writings on morality in literature were intensely useful for others.”

“Morality?” Crowley pulled his knee up to his chest and squinted. “Thought you were a book professor or something like that?”

“Yes, I was,” Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Literature, by the way, it’s called _literature._ ”

“Mhm.”

“But,” Aziraphale continued a little haughtily, “I wrote mainly on the use of literature as a moral compass, from the mythos of the ancient world to modern ruminations on what it means to be human. Literature forms us from such a young age, after all, and it teaches us all individual lessons. The moral catharsis you might get from a text, for instance, might emerge as an ethical quandary to myself or another. The way we view literature as people differs from person to person, and yet, we share fiction as a universal guide to what it means to exist and share the world.”

“That sounds,” Crowley let out a huff of a laugh.

“Boring, I know,” Aziraphale ate the rest of his cake quickly and wiped his mouth.

“Not boring, more like, a lot of things I don’t know,” Crowley admitted. He hadn’t even gone to college, had gotten mixed up in a gang and ruined his life before trying to get himself back on the straight and narrow.

Where he’d landed was more wiggly and broad than was exactly proper, but it was better than stealing hubcaps and working as muscle for mob bosses.

“Well, it’s never too late to learn,” Aziraphale soothed, sipping his tea. He paused before taking another sip. “Although I suppose we are both dead.”

“Yeah.” A thought struck him then, as Aziraphale leaned forward and examined the remaining cakes and pastries. “But if we _are_ here forever…”

“Yes?” Aziraphale prodded when he stopped talking.

“If we’re here forever.” Crowley’s other foot slipped to the ground and he gripped the table. “Maybe it isn’t too late for me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Maybe it isn’t too late for me to learn!”

“I don’t know if a lecture series would improve your current predicament,” Aziraphale began, but Crowley jumped up from his seat and clapped his hands before pointing at the other man.

“No, it _would_!” Crowley nodded and started to pace. “If I learn all that … morality bullshirt from you--”

“--well, excuse me--”

“--it might actually make it easier for me to pretend to be, you know…” Crowley huffed in exasperation and gestured at Aziraphale.

“A decent person?” He asked dryly.

“Exactly!” Crowley resumed pacing. “If you taught me all those moral lessons, it might make me look like a better person, one who belongs here, and then Gabriel would never suspect a thing! No one would catch me, bing bang boom, I’m a good person.” He held his hand out to Aziraphale, waiting for him to take it. “Whaddya say, partner?”

“You want me … to _lie_ … to the eternal, powerful being who created this place?” Aziraphale said slowly, staring at Crowley’s extended hand.

“Yep!” Crowley stuck his hand out further. “C’mon...it’s what an angel would do!”

“I’m not an angel,” Aziraphale grumbled, covering his eyes with his hands and squeaking. Crowley blinked, smiling slightly at the sound. “I - I - I’m a professor of literature who … who stress eats!”

That explained the cakes, then. Crowley shrugged.

“You’re also my best chance.” He retracted his hand and threw himself back in the seat. “My only chance to avoid eternal damnation. So? What do you say. Will you help me?”

“I suppose this … this arrangement could actually help you to _learn_ how to be a better person,” Aziraphale said slowly, lowering his hands from his face. Crowley nodded eagerly, although in the back of his mind he doubted if he ever really could become a better person. He’d had thirty-six years to do exactly that on earth, and he’d never really been a quick study. “And … and when we’re found out--”

“-- _If_ we’re found out--”

“When we’re found out, I could explain to Gabriel that you really did wish to become a better person, and if you’d improved at all, we could … could show him, that you could be saved.”

“Sounds good!” Crowley held his hand out again.

“But if he’s angry…” Aziraphale said and glanced towards the door, guilt and agony written on his face. “Oh, I do hate lying!”

“If he’s angry, I’ll take the blame,” Crowley supplied in a hurry. “Like anyone could ever be mad at you, you look like everyone’s favorite uncle. I bet you have magic tricks and butterscotch candies in your pockets.”

“Well actually, they’re sherbert lemons,” Aziraphale said in a conspiratorial whisper, hand dipping into his pocket to procure a wrapped candy. Crowley smirked, and Aziraphale chucked it on the table in a huff. He then stared at Crowley’s hand, conflict obviously warring in his eyes.

“I don’t want to go to the Bad Place,” Crowley said, his earnestness surprising him. “Please. Please help me?”

“Oh.” Aziraphale clenched his hands into fists for a moment, his face scrunched up. “Oh, alright!”

They shook heartily across the table, and Aziraphale, although sweaty, smiled and then laughed nervously.

“This might be the most wicked thing I’ve ever done,” he confessed, reaching for the pot and refreshing his cup of tea.

“Well, I just might have to teach you a thing or two then,” Crowley countered, popping a grape in his mouth in victory, and Aziraphale humphed at him with a scowl.

It was slightly undermined when he refilled Crowley’s cup a moment later without being prompted.

***

The next day, Aziraphale and Crowley strolled through the neighborhood; Crowley was consistently amused at how many of the residents’ names his apparent soulmate knew, and when he said as much after meeting a spritely elderly couple from up the lane, Aziraphale shook his head.

“It’s only common decency,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand. “I’ve been here for a few days longer than you have, after all.”

“Really? Well, I don’t remember any names, at all, ever.”

“Of course you do.” Aziraphale stopped on the sidewalk and gestured towards the couple that were walking away. “What’s that man’s name?”

“Iono.” Crowley shrugged, cramming his hands into today’s nightmarish khakis. They looked like he could have bought them at Costco. Ugh. “Harold?”

“It was Gregory!” Aziraphale puffed himself up in indignation, his small belly straining at his waistcoat. The whole thing was rather reminiscent of being scolded by an animated bird, and Crowley made no effort to hide his sardonic grin. “And the lady?”

“That old broad?” Crowley pretended to frown thoughtfully. “Susan?”

“Emily!” Aziraphale poked him in the arm. “I don’t think I can fit _learning people’s names_ into a lecture, so why don’t you start … start focusing on that for today! Honestly!”

“I don’t even remember your last name,” Crowley teased.

“I - I - I -” Aziraphale spluttered.

“Evans?” Crowley scrunched his face up, pretending to think. He tilted his head back towards the sky and studied a cloud through the tinted glasses he found in the cottage that morning. “Everhart? Echolalia ...”

“I cannot _believe_ you!”

“I’m only kidding, angel,” Crowley teased, knowing the nickname would infuriate the other man. Sure enough, the flush on his cheeks deepened. “Aziraphale Eden. The one and only.”

“Well, then.” Aziraphale tugged on the bottom of his waistcoat and straightened out his jacket. Crowley chuckled, and after a strained second, Aziraphale’s mouth twitched and he started giggling as well, staring down the sidewalk at some random point, rather than look Crowley in the face.

He had a very nice laugh, Crowley noticed, light and simple, and it made his face light up in genuine mirth, smoothing out some of the worry lines that were permanently etched around his eyes. Crowley barely had time to form that thought, however, before a familiar voice called out to them.

“Would you look at that!” Gabriel strode towards them, hands outstretched. Aziraphale stopped laughing at once, as thought caught in something, and Crowley turned to face the architect, inexplicably defensive of the shorter man next to him. “Barely one day as soulmates, and you’ve already bonded! Incredible! Fate really does work!”

Gabriel came to a halt in front of them and clapped them both on the shoulder, pulling them into what felt like a football huddle. “Fate isn’t actually real, though. I should say the algorithm works.”

He slapped them both on the shoulder and took a step back. “What are you two up to this morning?”

They were supposed to have their first lesson this morning, and they exchanged a guilty look before turning back to Gabriel, whose violet eyes darted between them in moderate confusion.

“I--”

“We--”

“We were just going for a walk,” Crowley finished lamely. “Getting to know each other.”

“Lovely!” Gabriel straightened out the lapels of his lavender suit and gestured down the street. “If you didn’t have any solid plans, perhaps you’d want to meet some other new arrivals? Another soulmate pair, and, as we say in the architect business, four is a party!” He was already walking past them by the time Aziraphale and Crowley turned to look at each other. “Follow me!”

“I guess we’re following Gabriel,” Crowley grumbled, and Aziraphale hushed him, tapping on his arm fussily.

Gabriel looked over his shoulder, and, on some random instinct he couldn’t control, Crowley looped his arm through Aziraphale.

“Coming!” He called out. “Sorry, angel,” he hissed.

Gabriel, of course, heard that somehow.

“And you already have pet names!” He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and spun fully around, clapping his hands. “Gosh, I love humans!”

“Mhm.” Aziraphale smiled, his lips pressed together, and when Gabriel resumed walking, he glowered up at Crowley, who avoided his gaze for the rest of the walk.

Luckily, they didn’t have to talk, as Gabriel kept up a steady stream of comments on the neighborhood and the things he’d designed for it on the way, and after they’d walked for a quarter of an hour, they drew up in front of a beautiful townhome that took up almost half a block. Gabriel bounced up the stairs, almost vibrating with energy, and Crowley and Aziraphale hung back.

“We could have lived in something like this?” Crowley asked, aghast. “You could fit five of our stupid cottages in here--”

“I like our cottage,” Aziraphale protested. “You don’t like our cottage?”

Crowley, who never imagined sharing real estate with any person on earth, was struck silent for a moment by how easily he’d used the pronoun _our,_ and almost missed the door opening.

A pretty woman stepped out and smiled at Gabriel, and then down at them.

“Hello!” She waved them up. “Come along then.”

They traipsed up the stairs and shook hands with the woman, who introduced herself as Mary Loquacious.

“I was a nun, if you can believe it,” she said cheerfully, leading them into her home without batting an eye at their own names. “A nun, for two decades, and then out of nowhere, I decided I could do more good as a businesswoman, so I quit the convent, set up shop helping professionals deal with stress and anxiety, and I suppose I got a little too into it!” She laughed in a self deprecating way, not bothering to explain the joke as she led them through the house towards the sitting room.

“We were hoping to meet your soulmate, Mary,” Gabriel said quickly into the brief quiet, and Mary turned around, her smile strangely faltering.

“Right, of course.” She nodded and looked around. “He’s usually - ah, there he is!”

A man was kneeling in front of the window in the corner of the parlor, and he rose when Mary walked towards him.

“Come on, darling, we have company!”

The man was in his early thirties, Crowley guessed, and very handsome, with a hint of stubble at his jaw. His eyes were obscured by thick glasses, and he wore white robes.

He stood before them, his hands hidden by his vast sleeves still, and looked at Crowley and then at Aziraphale. Mary looked to him for a long moment before sighing, her smile faltering again before speaking.

“This is my soulmate, Pierre leSaint.”

The man bowed slightly and made no effort to shake their hand; Crowley fought the urge to exchange a look with Aziraphale.

“Pierre took a vow of silence as a Carthusian monk,” Gabriel explained, smiling warmly at the man. “And he’s taking the vow seriously even here in the afterlife. Good for you, Pierre!’

“Yeah, good for you,” Crowley echoed, squinting at the man. He looked … oddly familiar.

Pierre wouldn’t look him in the eye though, and he bowed to each of them, and last to Mary, before kneeling in the window again.

“Best if we give him a spot of privacy,” Mary muttered, not even glancing over her shoulder at him as she swept from the room. She started jabbering away at Gabriel, who walked with her in front of Aziraphale and Crowley.

“Trouble in paradise?” Crowley muttered to Aziraphale, who huffed in vague annoyance.

“Stop looking for imperfections all the time,” Aziraphale whispered back. “You’ll find that life is _much_ happier that way!”

They followed Mary and Gabriel down to the front entrance, and Mary turned to them with a bright smile.

“We’re hosting a party tonight, and you’re both coming!” She declared.

“Is that an invitation?” Crowley asked, and he would have said _or an order,_ but Aziraphale leaned into his side and slipped his hand into his own without warning, and Crowley forgot what he was going to say, his mouth hanging open like some useless fish.

“Of course it’s an invitation, dear, why else would I say it!” Mary laughed and patted Gabriel on the cheek. “Gabriel was saying how important it was for everyone in the neighborhood to get to know all the new arrivals, so everyone will be there, and everyone will get to know the real Aziraphale and the real Crowley!”

“That sounds…” Aziraphale squeezed his hand, a clear warning. “...Lovely, Mary. Thank you.”

The two walked down the steps, sans Gabriel, a minute later, with promises to arrive precisely at six for the _best party ever_! according to Mary. As they turned down the street towards the cottage, Aziraphale finally released him, and Crowley shook his hand out.

After they walked in, Aziraphale took his shoes off, setting them on the little shelf near the door. Crowley, conversely, kicked off his loafers into a corner blindly.

Aziraphale grumbled, going to pick them up and set them on the shelf next to his own shoes.

“D’you think there’s enough time to do a crash course in basic human decency before the party?” Crowley asked, glaring at the disturbing clown portrait across from the door.

“What time is it?’

“10:30?”

“Let’s get to work,” Aziraphale sighed. “Maybe we’ll get through please and thank you by five.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!!!!! I'm thinking this fic will be about seven or eight chapters long !!! thank you to everyone for being so supportive of my first real multi-chapter ineffable husbands project!


	3. Parties and Partners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley attend a party (it doesn't go well), and they start their lessons (that also doesn't go well)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **potential warning** for snakes ; and bullying

“Catch me one of those little fritzy things, would you?” Crowley squinted over his champagne glass towards the doors, waiting for the moment when the Good Place police burst down the doors and dragged him away. Surely it was inevitable at this point.

_If only he hadn’t told that woman what he thought of her hairdo..._

“An amuse bouche?” Aziraphale clarified, pointing at a tray as it flashed by in the hands of one of the hired staff for the evening.

Strange, that the Good Place would have hired waiters and waitresses to work cocktail parties. Crowley wondered if they actively enjoyed waiting in their lives on earth, if they were doing it here. He shrugged and put the thought out of his head.

“Yes, angel, an amuse bouche.” He didn’t bother to hide the snip in his voice as he impersonated Aziraphale’s accent.

“Excuse me, miss,” Aziraphale pointed at the tray with a pleasant smile. “May I?”

The woman smiled prettily at Aziraphale and held out the tray, so the man could select two of the fancy little appetizers.

Aziraphale ate the first, and as Crowley held out his hand expectantly, Aziraphale crammed the second in his mouth as well.

“Hey!” Crowley spluttered; the waitress had already disappeared into the throngs of people, and it was too late to flag her down again. “”Why would you eat both?”

“Maybe because I am nervous!” Aziraphale snapped, although it was hard to snap through cheeks puffed by delicious amuse bouche. Crowley _thought_ they were delicious at least, not that his “soulmate” would let him find out.

He wondered if it was possible to starve to a second death here in the Good Place.

“Nervous? Why should you, of all people, be nervous?” Crowley grumbled, twirling the remnants of his champagne and glowering at it.

“Perhaps because my _soulmate_ ,” he hissed the word, scowling up at Crowley, a hint of caviar at the corner of his mouth, which was, in fact, a little distracting, “up and told a perfectly nice woman that her hair reminded him of _Medusa_!”

“Well, it did,” Crowle said, refusing to sound the least bit apologetic.

Aziraphale scoffed in clear disbelief and went back to scowling and tapping his foot, eyes darting around the room.

“C’mon.” Crowley elbowed him slightly. “You know it did.” Aziraphale shook his head and looked away. Crowley elbowed him again. “C’mon.”

“Even if I agreed with you, I would never have said it out loud!” Aziraphale whirled around, finger raised in warning.

“So you do agree with me?” Crowley pouted at him before draining his champagne. Aziraphale smiled for a half a second until Crowley, realizing there were no trays around, chucked his empty glass in a nearby potted plant.

“You could at least try to make it seem as though you belong here!” Aziraphale snapped quietly.

“Oh, I should, should I?” Crowley was overcome with the urge to stick his tongue out at his companion; perhaps five glasses of champagne on an empty stomach wasn’t anymore of a good idea here as it was on earth. “What’s the best way to do that, angel?”

“Not littering, for starters,” Aziraphale said, lowering his voice when a few residents looked their way curiously. He smiled timidly at them, and Crowley draped an arm around his shoulders and offered a tight-lipped smile of his own. They turned away from the onlookers and put their heads together, as though in intimate confidence, and were not, in fact, mid-scolding session. “And not telling women that their hair reminds you of a den of snakes on a mythological beast.”

“Medusa was supposed to be very beautiful.” Crowley hiccuped and smiled down at Aziraphale. “Other than the turning you into stone bit.”

“I should like to turn _you_ into stone,” Aziraphale said without much heat, his eyes flickering up to Crowley’s before darting away, a small, teasing smile appearing on his lips.

 _Don’t look at his mouth --_ a warning voice said in his head. _Bad Crowley. Bad._

He hissed instead, drawing out the _sss_ deliciously and waggling his fingers up and down the sleeve of Aziraphale’s suit jacket.

“Oh, stop it,” Aziraphale snorted, swatting at his hand.

“Sorry to interrupt an intimate moment!” A slightly familiar voice chimed in, and the two startled apart as though caught doing something devious (and perhaps, in a way, they were). Mary Loquacious beamed at them, seemingly unaware of the immediate hostility emanating from Crowley. Aziraphale managed to just look bashful. “You two are completely adorable.”

She tugged on the white robes of her soulmate. “Aren’t they adorable, Pierre?”

The man studied Aziraphale and Crowley, blinking passively behind his large glasses. He nodded once.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale said, all politeness. Crowley squinted his eyes at Pierre, wondering if there was anything going on in that pretty head. The monk stared back at him, the glasses doing much to obscure whatever brightness - if there were any - could have been in his gaze.

Pierre bowed to Aziraphale in response, looking away from Crowley after several uncomfortable moments.

“Are you two enjoing the party?” Mary gestured around the hall with a big, big smile that did nothing to hide the anxiety in her eyes.

It was her turn to be squinted at ; Crowley examined her expression, with the strange and sudden thought that she didn’t seem to enjoy hosting parties at all.

“We’re having a lovely time,” he spoke first, and Aziraphale’s gaze could be felt on the side of his face like a white hot brand. “Thank you for having us, Mary.”

“Really? You’re enjoying yourself?”

 _I just said I did,_ Crowley wanted to snap. But Aziraphale was still staring at him.

“It’s wonderful,” he assured her instead. “I especially love what you did with the uh, the uh, ice sculpture...things?”

He gestured broadly at the collection of ice sculptures looming over the plates of fruit and bottles of champagne.

“Thank you.” Mary clasped a hand to her chest and put the other one on Pierre’s shoulders. “That’s actually the crest of Pierre’s order - I wanted him to have a little piece of home. What do you think, darling, is a good likeness?”

Pierre looked over at the ice crests; if there was any sort of familiarity there, he didn’t show it in his face. After a second he nodded, and bowed his head towards Mary.

“Well, that was, verbose,” Mary said with a nervous laugh. “If you excuse me, I have to make sure Gabriel’s speech goes off as well as possible, so we’re going to go get the rose petals ready.”

“Rose petals?” Aziraphale repeated, frowning slightly when Crowley looked over to him.

“Yes, yes, he was very particular about the rose petals. There has to be seven thousand and one hundred and fifty of them, one for each year he’s been studying to be an architect.” She shook her head fondly, a smile reaching her eyes for the first time. “Can you believe this is his first neighborhood?’

“I would never have been able to guess,” Aziraphale answered with a sweet smile of his own, and Crowley felt fit to gag over all the earnestness floating around him.

“Why, thank you, Aziraphale.” Gabriel appeared with zero warning, and had Crowley been holding his flute of champagne, he would have dropped it. Thank God-Gabriel-Anathema-Whoever that he’d had the foresight to throw it into the topiary. “That’s so kind of you to say.”

“It’s really your first neighborhood?” Crowley lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

“Yes, I was an apprentice before now. They finally trusted me enough to make this neighborhood perfect, and,” he sighed in pure joy and clasped Crowley and Pierre on the shoulder, shaking them slightly as he rocked back and forth, “And it’s really all happening. I’m so, totally, absolutely overjoyed to be sharing this with you all.”

“It’s an honor for us as well, Gabriel,” Mary assured him. “But let’s go make sure everything is ready?”

“Yes, of course!” Gabriel released his grip on Pierre and Crowley and smoothed his hair out nervously. “Do I look alright?”

“Very much more than alright,” Aziraphale assured him, and Crowley’s gut twinged with … something.

Gabriel didn’t notice and smiled happily, walking away through the party with Mary, Pierre a few steps behind them.

He couldn’t keep the glower off his face, not even when Aziraphale turned to him with a tentative smile.

“You did very well,” the shorter man said with a pleased expression, “Very well indeed! You helped calm Mary Loquacious down, and it was very kind of you--”

“Very kind, was it?” Crowley snapped. He grabbed another champagne flute and a handful of amuse bouche when two waiters walked past them at the same time. He downed half the champagne in one go. “Was it very much more than alright?”

He shoved the crackers and their coverings into his mouth as well, swallowing his champagne with a boorish smack of his lips, and, while making eye contact with a now flustered Aziraphale, chucked his champagne flute into the same potted plant as before.

“Really, Crowley, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Aziraphale said, lowering his voice again. “I was only saying--”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you.” Crowley shoved his hands into the pockets of the stupid dress pants he’d found in the Not-Crowley closet this afternoon. “Loud and clear.”

There was a tinkle from the front of the room, and everyone turned towards Mary, who was standing under a chandelier with Gabriel at her side.

“Time for the speech,” Crowley said. People walked towards the middle of the hall, and Crowley tapped Aziraphale on the shoulder. “See you back at the house.”

He stumbled away from the gathering crowd, ignoring the tug on his sleeve that was definitely from Aziraphale.

“You’ll miss Gabriel’s speech,” he protested, and Crowley didn’t turn around.

“Send me the Sparknotes version,” Crowley muttered, shaking Aziraphale off and sweeping towards the door.

When Aziraphale returned to the cottage two hours later, Crowley was wearing his pajamas and sitting on the couch in the living room, scowling at the blank tv, which, apparently, had only been programmed with channels on local interest - which meant every channel was showing Mary’s party, the one he’d abandoned.

Channel 7 had given him a very nice image of Aziraphale laughing delightedly at something Gabriel said, Gabriel and another person with strawberry blonde curls and impeccable makeup, and Crowley had turned off the tv with something rather like a snarl when he’d seen it.

“Did you have a nice time?” He asked, able to keep the sting out of his voice remarkably well.

“Yes.” Aziraphale placed his shoes on the rack by the door, and then knelt to collect Crowley’s abandoned dress shoes from the corner and place them there as well. “It would have been nicer if I did not have to explain where my soulmate had gone.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“I said you weren’t feeling well,” Aziraphale dusted his hands off as he stood. “Didn’t seem like much of a lie.”

“About all that--”

“It’s fine, Crowley.” Aziraphale smiled thinly at him. “Now get up, I have the couch tonight.”

Crowley nodded and stood, recognizing a dismissal when he saw one. He headed into the bedroom and turned to watch Aziraphale fluff up the pillows and set out a blanket. Right before he said something else, something apologetic, Aziraphale grabbed the remote and turned on the tv.

The theme song of _I Love Lucy_ immediately started to play.

“How’d you do that?” Crowley asked, frowning, his apology forgotten.

“Hmm?” Aziraphale slipped his jacket off and folded it neatly over the couch, sitting down tidily. “Do what?”

“Get something to play that isn’t _The Good Place Live,_ that’s what,” Crowley took a half step out of the doorway to glare up at the screen.

“What are you talking about?” Aziraphale asked, true surprise coloring his tone. “Whatever I want to watch comes on; isn’t it the same for you?”

“I -” Crowley swallowed painfully. “No, sorry, I must be - goodnight, Aziraphale.”

“Goodnight, Crowley.” Flatter than usual, none of his typical warmth and enthusiasm, but it was better than a row with a vase smashed on the wall near his head.

Crowley didn’t close the door before getting into bed, preferring to have it cracked so the silver-blue light of the television trickled in across the floor, the laugh track and exploits of a silly woman and her best friend in the fifties carrying him into sleep.

***

“Crowley?”

A timid, frightened call of his name roused him from slumber.

“Wassit?” He sat up groggily, wiping his face.

“Crowley, would you - could you come in here, please?”

“Coming.” Crowley stood and stretched luxuriously, cracking his spine and wiping his face a few more times before heading to the door.

“Crowley!”

“I said I was coming,” Crowley snapped, wrenching the door fully open.

He froze, then, feeling his jaw crack as his mouth popped open.

At least three dozen snakes were in the living room, and in the middle of it all, standing with a look of pure terror on his face, was Aziraphale.

“What did you do?” Crowley asked, amazed.

“I didn’t do anything!” Aziraphale shouted, his limbs not moving an inch. Two snakes had managed to crawl up him and sit on his shoulders. “I woke up, and there snakes in here, and, and everywhere outside!”

“They’re outside, too?” Crowley crossed the room, delicately stepping over the snakes, which parted peacefully enough when he walked by. He opened the curtain and discovered that there were, in fact, waves of snakes slithering down the road outside the cottage, packs of them dripping off the trees and fences that were visible. “Huh.”

“You aren’t - you’re not scared?” Aziraphale asked from behind him.

“Why would I be?” Crowley grabbed a snake that was hanging off the curtain rod. “None of these snakes are venomous.”

In response, the snake wrapped around Crowley’s wrist, seeking the heat and warmth; he smiled down at it before looking over at Aziraphale, whose expression suggested a mix of exasperation, fear, and, dare he say, fondness.

“They can still bite!” Aziraphale protested weakly.

“Well, have they?” Crowley frowned as another snake wound around his ankle. “Hello, love.”

“No, but - but that doesn’t mean they won’t!”

“We’re already dead,” Crowley pointed out, shrugging as he walked back towards Aziraphale and began to gently pull snakes away from him. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“That’s … I suppose that’s true,” Aziraphale allowed. His fingers shook the first time he pried a snake away from his hip, but they were much steadier on the next few.

“They were all just here -- poof -- when you woke up?” Crowley frowned and squatted, studying the door. He patted one snake on the head when it lifted up towards him and tested the air curiously. “Fascinating.”

“I don’t think they came from nowhere.”

“What d’you reckon?” Crowley stood, taking a garter snake with him. He’d had quite a few reptiles when he was alive, preferring their demeanors to any kind of mammal, human included.

“Please, Crowley, are you telling me you have no idea what I’m talking about?”

“None at all, I’m sure.”

“This doesn’t feel … at all pointed to you?” Aziraphale asked, wrenching a particularly fat snake from his collar.

“No?” Crowley ignored the tiny python trying to inch up his leg. “Why would it?’

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” Aziraphale stamped his foot, and immediately a snake hissed and recoiled. “Sorry, sorry dear! Yes, _hisss_ indeed.” Crowley couldn’t stop the smile on his face at Aziraphale’s divided attentions. “I mean, you make fun of a woman openly about her _medusa_ hair, and a day later, we’re drowning in snakes!”

“I wouldn’t say we’re drowning,” Crowley pointed out, and Aziraphale glared at him. “Touchy, touchy -- sorry, did you die by drowning?”

It struck him then, that he had no idea how Aziraphale had died -- and he wondered if it was at all polite to ask.

“Honestly,” Aziraphale said with a scoff. Before Crowley could push the issue, there was a knock at the door.

They froze again and stared at each other, dripping with snakes the way kings drip with jewels, and Aziraphale stammered in a truly suspiciously high-pitched voice, “Who is it?”

“It’s Gabriel!” was wailed through the door.

“Come on in!” Aziraphale called back, as Crowley hissed _no! No! Send him away!_

His request went unanswered, and the door opened.

Gabriel was standing there, the lavender of his suit barely visible through all the snakes.

“The neighborhood is broken!” He announced with a sniff. “I am a failure!” A snake wound around his neck like a noose.

“Oh, Gabriel,” Aziraphale fussed, and Crowley walked towards him quickly, disentangling the snake and placing it on his own shoulder.

“I’m sure we’ll get it all sorted out,” Crowley assured him. “I know a lot about snakes, and--”

“You do?” Gabriel’s violet eyes latched onto him as though he’d offered him a lifeline in the middle of the ocean. “Oh, I - I don’t know anything about snakes.” He looked around Crowley at Aziraphale and laughed in a shy way. “I slept through Herpetology, I’m afraid.”

“That’s quite alright, Gabriel,” Aziraphale assured him. “I’m sure Crowley would be happy to help.”

“I would?” Crowley glared over his shoulder at Aziraphale, who inconspicuously waved a hand at him as if to say _go on._ “I mean, I would, yeah!”

He turned back to Gabriel in time to see the architect smile, wide and terrifyingly happy.

“You would? Oh, thank goodness!” He threw his arms around Crowley in a very unwelcome hug, and Crowley patted his back awkwardly a few times before finding himself being dragged out the door.

“See you later, angel,” he called back, knowing that Gabriel would hear the pet name, and not the thinly veiled threat that lurked within the farewell.

“Goodbye, my dear! Have fun!” Aziraphale shouted in response, and before the door closed, Crowley swore he saw a hint of a smirk on Aziraphale’s face.

***

Somehow, Gabriel and Crowley were able to wrangle most of the snakes down towards the center of the neighborhood, at which point Anathema was summoned to do away with the reptilian invaders.

She picked one up curiously, and Crowley swore he could see her smile at it.

“Are these humans, too?” She asked.

“No, Anathema, those are snakes,” Gabriel explained, pointed at the snake only to have to retract his hand quickly when the finger was snapped at. “Could you please remove them?’

“Sure thing,” Anathema answered. “Where do you want me to put them, though? In a bathtub? The forest over there? In a sub dimension?”

“You can put them in your void for all I care, Anathema, just please get rid of them!”

“Okay!” Anathema smiled and tilted her head.

 _Bing!_ All the snakes disappeared, and Crowley was left to wonder if an army of snakes trapped in a void somewhere was a soothing or terrifying concept.

***

The next few weeks found Aziraphale and Crowley beginning their lessons in earnest, despite some drawbacks here and there.

Mainly, Crowley’s hatred of reading. Aziraphale was fairly brutal in assigning homework, and Crowley, who’d never even made it to his A Levels, was quite unused to daily readings, let alone the sort of strenuous texts Aziraphale seemed to favor.

One particular afternoon grew quite nasty when Crowley threw a book across the room - ignoring, for the moment, the shout of protest from his tutor - and groaned loudly.

“Why should I give a shirt if some country tartlet slept with the wrong man?” He stood up and dragged his hands through his hair until it was nothing more than a ginger snarl. “Why does anyone else give a shirt for that matter, she didn’t do anything wrong! That custard cousin of hers - gah! Custard! Custard! Shirt! Drab it! - is the one who did everything wrong!”

“Exactly!” Aziraphale clapped his hands together. “Tess shouldn’t have had to suffer at all, but people _thought_ she did, so she --”

“It’s a stupid book.” Crowley stomped his foot childishly. “For stupid people who don’t know anything but stupid shirt. And I won’t finish it.”

They were silent for a pause, until:

“It’s my favorite.”

Crowley turned from where he was scowling at the clown portrait, hand to his forward to push his curls away from his eyes. “What?”

“It’s my favorite book.” Aziraphale crossed the room and picked the discarded novel up with a distinct sniff.

“Azzy-” He wasn’t sure where the nickname came from, as he’d never given anyone a nickname before (and now he’d given this man _two_ ), but it went unnoticed.

“I suppose that makes me stupid, though.” He weighed the book in his hands, not looking up.

“No, it doesn’t - I - I was only--”

“I think we’re done for today.” Aziraphale snapped the book shut and tucked it under his arm, disappearing into the bedroom before Crowley could say another word.

Crowley spent a good deal of time in the garden after that, poking at a few plants with grumblings. That afternoon, he found a little snake who’d escaped the scourge of the previous week, and to his great surprise, he made no effort at all to excise it from the garden.

Gabriel also made an annoying habit of showing up, and Aziraphale would have to stow the blackboard (so generously donated by Anathema, who hadn’t asked a single question but managed to inspire eons of guilt in Aziraphale, when she summoned the board) out of sight. Luckily, the teaching materials were simply novels, and Gabriel would beam at them and compliment them on their matching tastes.

“We should start a book club!” He said one day. “That’s so human, isn’t it? So adorably human -- a book club!”

They had no choice but to accept.

Therefore, every Wednesday at six o’clock sharp, Aziraphale and Crowley would host the neighborhood book club, serving cheese and wine and reading books, boring, awful, lengthy pieces of literature that Crowley would have much rather eaten than read.

Gabriel, Mary Loquacious, Pierre LeSaint, and two residents named Michael (the person of indeterminate gender who turned out to prefer gender-neutral _they_ pronouns and brie cheese) and Uriel ( _she_ and gouda) packed themselves into the cottage’s tiny living room, while Aziraphale fretted about being a good host, and Crowley fretted about reading boring shirt close enough that he wouldn’t be sent to hell for not remembering random details of a book he couldn’t care less about.

It was, in a word, agonizing.

It grew slightly more entertaining one day when Gabriel asked Anathema a question, and with a cheerful _bing_ she appeared, and then did not disappear with another _bing_ when Mary asked her to stay.

Anathema had many amusing things to say about literature, and, with very mild goading on Crowley’s part, really did try to eat _Les Miserables_ one day.

Crowley was _sure_ he saw Aziraphale smile, and that was victory enough.

Things smoothed out between them around the sixth week - it was either hate each other or learn to survive in such close quarters, with such an intense arrangement in place - but Aziraphale was starting to grow popular amongst the other residents as well. Crowley, unsurprisingly, did well with absolutely no one, except maybe Gabriel.

He wasn’t sure what it said about him that the only ‘friend’ he managed to make (other than his fake-soulmate, who was mostly putting up with him out of the never-ending goodness of his squeaky-clean heart) was a vaguely immortal entity who’d never before interacted with humans, who mainly kept him around to ask questions about the uses of rubber ducks and the purpose of chopsticks.

Crowley tried not to feel jealous (it wasn’t jealousy, was it, only loneliness and a vague paranoia of being found out, yeah, that’s what curdled in his stomach so darkly) when the other residents pulled Aziraphale away; the main offender being Michael, who liked to take long walks with Aziraphale and pick his brain on literature.

Aziraphale would be flustered when he left, and flustered when he returned, so one day, they’d curled up on the sofa to read before bed when Crowley turned to Aziraphale with a frown and started what would be the absolute worst conversation of his life either alive or dead.

“Why do you go with them?”

“Why do I go with whom, Crowley?” Aziraphale didn’t look up from his book, and Crowley pulled his feet up on the couch.

“Why do you go walking with Michael if it makes you so uncomfortable?”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Aziraphale set his book down, realizing this was going to be _a thing,_ and Crowley smirked.

“Then why are you always so vexed when you go?”

“Michael is an absolute dear,” Aziraphale stroked the tassel of the throw pillow nearest of him thoughtfully before tugging it onto his lap. “It’s not them that makes me uncomfortable.”

“It’s the pants, isn’t it?” Crowley nodded at the trousers that strained slightly near the waistband, due to the very small, very endearing pudge of Aziraphale’s belly.

“No.” Aziraphale scowled.

“The shoes, then? I’m sure Anathema could summon you a nice pair of boots.”

“It’s not the shoes, either.”

“Then what is it, angel?” Crowley smirked at him. “The perfect weather too bothersome? Pleasant wind too irritating? Chirping birds too--”

“I’m afraid,” Aziraphale said quietly, and Crowley snapped his mouth shut. “It’s … it is very hard for me to make friends, and I spend the entire walking wondering what I should say, and if I’m being interesting enough, and do they even like me?”

“What?” Crowley frowned, but thoughtfully this time. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”

“All the time.” Aziraphale closed his eyes and laughed bitterly, a sad sound. “It’s not easy for me to talk to people.”

“Never would have guessed that.” Crowley rubbed at his jaw. “Is it hard to talk to me?’

“Not all the time,” Aziraphale said, opening his eyes and tilting his head thoughtfully. "Honestly, very rarely."

Neither of them said anything for a minute, and Crowley tried not to be too pleased that _their_ conversations were _different._ Ha, universe. Ha.

Then:

“I was … picked on when I was in school.” Aziraphale sat stiffly at the edge of the couch, staring at the coffee table. He tries to manage a weak smile but fails. “Miserably so. Shoved into trash cans. Mocked openly by students. The instructors too, at times. Fake invitations to spend time with people. To this day, I, I have a very hard time deciding when someone is truly being friendly, or searching for a weakness.”

Something a bit too close to anger sparked inside Crowley, but he chose to ignore it, wanting to chase the clouds away from Aziraphale’s face.

“What could they possibly make fun of?” He asked, sitting at the other end of the couch and poking at Aziraphale’s side with a socked foot. The professor huffed and swatted at him but didn’t bother to look over; of course, Crowley took that as an invitation to poke at him again. “Hm? Were you too nice? Did your bow tie fit a little too well? Did--”

“Stop it!” Aziraphale turned his massive blue eyes on him, and Crowley’s words died in his throat at the redness creeping in, a sign of building tears. “I - I just told you something that was very difficult for me to say, and your first instinct is to m-mock me?”

“I didn’t--” Crowley’s mouth hung open uselessly, like a chasm ripped open in the earth after a 9.5 on the Richter. _He always did ask too many questions, didn’t know when enough was enough._ “Aziraphale, I didn’t mean--”

“But you did.” Aziraphale looked away from him, but his body still turned towards him, as though he were in great conflict with himself. “I’ve risked … quite literally everything to help you, and you think everything is a great big joke! I wanted to believe the best in you, I really did. But now… why, I don’t think you actually want to be a better person.”

At the beginning of all of this, Crowley had, admittedly, been more interested in saving his own skin and/or soul than developing an actual moral compass; even this morning, he would have muttered to himself that _no_ he didn’t want to be a better person, he just didn’t want to spend eternity on the rack.

But now, faced with the disappointment rolling off of Aziraphale in waves, the disappointment he’d been the source of, the hurt he’d inadvertently caused, he knew that he _did_ want to be a better person, if only so that Aziraphale, the only good and kind person who’d even given him the time of day, would never look like this again, would never hurt like this again.

Crowley realized that even if he didn’t have the _best_ reason for wanting to succeed in their little arrangement, he still wanted to succeed, and that absolutely had to count for something.

“That’s not true,” he said, his voice hoarse and shoulders tense. He withdrew his foot from Aziraphale’s side and tucked it under himself. It had been a few seconds since either of them spoke, and the words still hung thick and heavy in the air. “I - I do want to, I want to try, at least.”

“Then why do you keep tearing down the one person who’s trying to help you?” Aziraphale asked quietly, his shoulders rounding in towards his ears as he tried to make himself look smaller. “The one person who’s willing to help you?’

“Maybe it’s because,” Crowley licked his lip nervously, knowing he was about to prod on a scar deep inside himself that wasn’t a scar so much as it was a bruise, knowing that he was giving Aziraphale the power to hurt him just as much as he could help him, “Maybe it’s because I don’t think I deserve the help. Maybe because every time in my life where I wanted it, needed it, asked for it - I ended up falling worse than I had before I asked.”

Aziraphale looked at him again, his hands folded in his lap, and his gaze settled around Crowley’s shoulders like Atlas’s burden.

“It simply is not a good enough reason to want to hurt people because you’ve been hurt before,” Aziraphale said softly. “And you’re far too clever to have believed that in the first place.”

Without another word, Aziraphale stood and walked towards the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

For the first time since dying, Crowley truly felt alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhhh you ineffable goobers. 
> 
> (thanks again to everyone! the outline's all fleshed out now, and I imagine the next chapter will be up very soon indeed)


	4. Picnics and Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley tries to apologize to Aziraphale (it doesn't go disastrously), and then encounters an unexpected problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello and sorry for the eleven day break wherein Much Life Things happened, but here is chapter four, which was squeaked out through sheer willpower.

When Crowley next saw Aziraphale, it was the following day - another pleasant, sunny day in the neighborhood, and he took it as a sign of his definite not-belonging that he found himself missing rain - and there were a stack of books on the coffee table, the authors ranging from Nietchze to Hesse.

Crowley had, of course, barely slept the night before, his stomach rumbling the way he’d always associated with food poisoning. A plan had formed sometime in the early hours, and he’d slouched off the couch early, eschewing his normal tradition of laying about until Aziraphale summoned him for a lesson or Gabriel appeared with a need for help. 

While he’d never had a flatmate for longer than three months on earth, or had a relationship that lasted longer than “nice to meet you, get out of my bed,” Crowley understood that on some level he needed to reestablish a positive relationship with Aziraphale, who had certainly been nothing but accommodating, and Crowley had treated poorly regardless -- or he risked damnation, quite literally.

When the options were Do Something Nice for Your Nice Roommate or Suffer Eternally At the Hands of Demons, Crowley figured it wasn’t a very hard choice to make after all.

“Good morning,” Aziraphale said, albeit stiffly, when Crowley emerged from the kitchen of the cottage. “I thought we might like to take a step back and look at questions on morality and the need for its existence today. We might have jumped in too quickly to Hardy, and -”

“I don’t think we should today,” Crowley interrupted. 

“Really?” Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms in front of his chest, the buttons of his waistcoat straining somewhat over his bell. “You’re going to throw in the towel? After everything I’ve done for you, and--”

“No.” Crowley rubbed the back of his neck and squirmed internally for a full three seconds, trying to find a way out of this, but it was too late, so, “I thought we could … take a break today.”

“Take … a break?” Aziraphale repeated, brow furrowing.

“Yeah, breaks, they’re uh, they’re good for… attention spans … or something,” Crowley muttered, “Heard it on the radio once, but I wasn’t really listening to it, I just had it on so my boss would think -” He held up the basket he’d packed and smiled nervously. “Picnic?”

“A picnic?” Aziraphale’s eyebrows shot up. 

“A picnic,” Crowley confirmed, pressing his toes into the bottoms of his shoes, trying to grapple with the awkwardness suddenly coursing through him.  _ Did Aziraphale even like picnics? Did anyone over the age of ten?  _ “I packed some of your favourites, and Anathema helped me, well she did most of it really, and, we can always, uh, talk about … books while we’re eating, but I thought it might be...nice.”

Aziraphale stared blankly at him.

Crowley hadn’t actively attempted to do anything nice in years, and he had a very strong feeling he was mucking this up something terrible. Honestly, if Aziraphale didn’t say something (or even  _ blink _ ) in the next five seconds, he was going to jump out the window and run away into those woods that framed the end of the neighborhood. Yeah. Jumping out the window. Good solution. Yep.

“Are there egg and cress sandwiches?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley relaxed so painfully quick that he swore he almost blacked out.

“Course there are,” he confirmed with a smile. “And those little chocolatey things you’re so fond of.” He shook the basket demonstratively. 

“Well, this does all sound very lovely.” Aziraphale set his book down and sighed happily before gesturing to the door. “After you?”

Crowley fought the very powerful urge to fist pump like that scraggly kid from that Breakfast movie on the way out the door.

They picked a patch of green near the center of the neighborhood, in the middle of a large park with well-kept gardens and a quaint river winding through it. Crowley set the blanket down under a tree and gestured for Aziraphale to sit first, and he plopped down next to him, his stomach already rumbling.

He opened the top of the picnic basket after Aziraphale had settled fully, the man sitting quite primly while Crowley sprawled out; he almost took the first sandwich before remember that this was, after all, for Aziraphale, so he pushed the basket towards him instead.

They munched on sandwiches quietly for a few minutes, a cool breeze ruffling their hair, and Crowley shifted uncomfortably until, unable to contain it any longer, he burst out with:

“I’m … sorry.”

“Did you eat the last egg and cress?” Aziraphale asked with no shortage of consternation, squinting into the basket.

“No!” Crowley pointed at the next package of sandwiches, which Aziraphale opened with an  _ ah  _ of contentment. “I meant, I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting.”

“Don’t mention it.” Aziraphale smiled tightly, still unwrapping a sandwich without looking up. “It’s quite alright.”

“I am mentioning it,” Crowley said firmly. “And it’s not alright. I have been an unrepentent ash-hole my entire life, and I blame all the shirt I do on shirt that’s happened to me, but … it’s no excuse. I’m an adult, Aziraphale, and I’m an adult who hurt a friend, so I’m sorry.”

“Well.” Aziraphale fiddled with the crusts on his sandwich for a few seconds before looking up, a bashful smile on his face. “Apology accepted, my dear.”

He took a large and happy bite of egg and cress, and Crowley’s neck flashed with heat. Come to think of it, he was pretty warm in general - so much for perfect weather - and he squirmed before digging around in the basket.

Crowley groaned.

“What is it?” Aziraphale frowned in concern.

“I forgot drinks.” Crowley slapped a hand to his forehead. “Stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” Aziraphale corrected sternly. “Not at this particular moment, at least.” Crowley fought the urge to stick his tongue out at him; he failed, but Aziraphale only laughed softly. “We can fix that pretty quickly. Anathema!”

_ Bing!  _

“Hello, Aziraphale. Hello, Crowley.” The woman - was she a woman? Robot-witch? Jury was out - smiled down at them and smoothed out the large black skirt of her dress. “How can I help you?”

“We’re having a picnic,” Aziraphale said by way of explanation. “And forgot some drinks. Could you perhaps get us some lemonade--”

“--And some whiskey  --”

“--Just lemonade, thank you,” Aziraphale said, talking over Crowley, who sagged against the basket and glared up at the clouds. “We can drink back at the house, you lout.”

Crowley stuck his tongue out again at Aziraphale, who remarkably copied the gesture. Crowley was laughing by the time the glass of lemonade was offered to him by Anathema.

“Where do you pull this stuff from, anyway?” He asked with genuine curiosity, taking a sip of the drink. 

“From my void.” Anathema smiled and tilted her head. “But you’d probably find that boring.’

“Not at all, I assure you!” Aziraphale patted the blanket in front of them. “Join us, please! Tell us about your void!”

“ _ Aziraphale, _ ” Crowley hissed, meaning to finish up with  _ this is supposed to be for us,  _ but Anathema was already settling on the blanket, her skirt pooled around her.

“Egg and cress?” Aziraphale offered, ignoring Crowley again.

“I don’t eat,” Anathema reminded him. “And I’ve never been on a … picnic before, either.”

“No?” Aziraphale smiled at her. “Well, I welcome you to your first picnic! Don’t you as well, Crowley?”

“I--”

“Crowley wishes to be with you by himself,” Anathema reported. Crowley ground his teeth together. “It’s apparent in his heart rate when he is near you, and the way his pupils dilate when he looks at you that he wishes to --”

“That’s quite the guess there, Anathema!” Crowley interrupted, his neck unbearably warm again. “Surely you don’t mean to tell us that you know everything.”

“I don’t know everything,” Anathema redirected her attention on him. “I could, potentially, learn everything, but I would need to be programmed by Gabriel to do so. Until then, I use what I know and what I see to make predictions which turn out to be accurate 99.99% of the time.”

“So, you’re like Google?” Crowley wrinkled his nose, and Anathema laughed.

“No. Not like Google, either. But that’s the closest you’ve gotten with your analogies. Good job, Crowley!”

“I’m being patronized by a walking, talking search engine,” Crowley grumbled, but Aziraphale’s hand on his wrist stopped him from pushing further.

“Do you enjoy working with Gabriel?” Aziraphale asked.

“Enjoy?” 

“You know, do you … find working with him a pleasant activity?”

“It’s my job.” Anathema blinked once. “Pleasant is irrelevant. He is a talented architect, and he is very excited to work on your neighborhood.”

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged a look at the use of  _ your  _ but then Anathema stood. 

“Gabriel is calling for me. Goodbye.” She disappeared with another  _ bing _ !

“Well then.” Aziraphale reached for a chocolate crisp and stuffed it in his mouth. “Where were we?”

“Huh?” Crowley looked up from his empty glass of lemonade. “I don’t think we were really anywhere.” He rustled around in the basket before pulling out a thick novel. “But, I suppose we could talk about …”

“I thought you didn’t like Tess?” Aziraphale grabbed the book out of Crowley’s hand and hefted it in his palm.

“She’s alright,” Crowley admitted. “I might have...stayed up last night to read it all the way through.”

“You didn’t!” Aziraphale looked delighted at the idea.

“I thought about what you said - well, what you tried to say before I was an ash and mucked it all up - about how she almost  _ had  _ to be punished because it’s what society would have expected for a woman who’d gone through what Tess did, and uh, it was...it was alright.” 

Crowley’s neck had grown steadily warmer through his sentence, in direct relationship to how brightly Aziraphale smiled.

“Still don’t know why you forgave me so quick,” Crowley muttered, grabbing a chocolate for something to do with his hands.

“Because,” Aziraphale tapped him with the book. “You read this book - you know it’s about what it means to love and accepting imperfections and seeing people for who they really are; it’s about not letting your history, your past define you. How could this be my favorite novel, and then I become the sort of person who refuses to forgive?”

“Are you Tess, then, or Angel, angel?”

“If you insist on calling me angel, I think you know the answer to that,” Aziraphale said with a sad smile. “For I don’t think I would meet quite the standard you’ve set for me.”

“What d’you mean?” Crowley frowned now.

“I mean, you - you insist on calling me angel, and insist that I must be ever so much a better person than you--”

“-- I mean, you are, and only one of us belongs here, after all--”

“--But I … I don’t feel like a good person.” Aziraphale’s shoulders slouched and he looked off to the side, suddenly, oddly remorseful. “I spent my life amongst books, or in a lecture hall. I can’t imagine what I did to ensure a seat in Paradise against another person. And if the - the  _ Bad Place, _ ” - he whispered the name - “is really as  _ bad  _ as it sounds, then, perhaps I took the space from someone who--”

“That’s ridiculous.” Crowley cut him off firmly, and Aziraphale huffed at him. “No. It is. You are a good person. You could have - could have turned me in the second I told you who I really was, but instead you’re risking everything,” - Aziraphale opened his mouth to protest - “Nope, you said it yourself, you’re risking everything for a selfish custard who has nothing to offer you in return. I’m not Angel setting an ideal that’s impossible to reach. I think you’re good because you’re so obviously good.”

“Well, thank you.” Aziraphale blushed, straight to the tip of his nose, and it was dangerous how adorable Crowley found it. 

The blush brought out the colour of his eyes, their terrifyingly blueness, set against the roundness of his cheeks, and a quotation of Hardy’s came to Crowley’s mind, unbidden:

_ Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand. But no — they were not perfect. And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity. _

Odd. He’d never memorized anything that wasn’t written by Carly Rae Jepsen in his life.

“Why do you think I hated the book so much the first time ‘round?” Crowley asked, to distract himself from a strange tightening in his gut.

“Fiction is a mirror,” Aziraphale folded his hands in his lap and looked sideways at him, still pink in the ears.

“What?”

“What I mean to say is: stories, good stories, they … they hold a mirror up to you. And sometimes, you pick the stories that reflect back the very best of yourself, the parts you’re most proud of. But, sometimes they show you things you’d rather keep hidden. And those are the stories you reject, until you’re ready for them.” Aziraphale’s smile was brutally soft, and Crowley took it like an axe to the gut. 

Crowley leaned back on his hands, his legs spread out in front of him, and he rolled his head over so he could look at Aziraphale, the sunlight playing on his white-blonde curls. He spoke more earnestly than he ever had in life or death. 

“Did you know? You’re terribly clever, Azzy.” 

“Hardly.”

Aziraphale blushed all the same, and Crowley’s toes curled in his (ridiculous, hideous,  _ canvas _ ) shoes.

They laid out in the sun a little longer until it was time to head back home - Michael would be by for their daily walk with Aziraphale, and as much as Crowley grumbled and fussed about  _ just cancel,  _ Aziraphale held firm in his ‘no cancelling plans at the last second’ policy.

It was a policy Crowley had never considered, nor would he ever consider. Cancelling plans was, to paraphrase a man much funnier than himself, like heroin. Sweet, sweet relief.

Michael was already waiting for them when they walked up to their front door, and Crowley was left behind as the two trotted off to who knew where for the next hour. Shaking his head in a strange bout of disappointment, Crowley pushed open the door and entered the cottage.

He shut the door behind himself and stretched out his back after setting the picnic basket down. The forking clown portrait smirked at him from on high, and Crowley wondered if he could hold his middle finger up in the Good Place.

No time like the present: he lifted his right hand defiantly and flicked off the portrait -- his index finger went up instead. Crowley laughed indignantly and tried again, but to no avail; every time he tried to lift his middle finger proudly, his index went up instead.

“Forking weird,” he muttered to himself. He tilted back further and squinted at the ceiling. “I guess there’s no Big Guy to talk to about this? Is that what I’m learning about this place? No CEO? No El Presidente? No random acts of G--”

Something slid under the door, and Crowley twitched in surprise. 

He turned and stared at the offending item for a solid three seconds, something suspiciously like guilt pounding in his throat. Crowley took a step toward it, and then another, and then another, until he loomed over the white envelope which had slid under his front door and interrupted his thoughts.

It was addressed to him.

Crowley grabbed it, squinted up at the ceiling one last time, not fully convinced there wasn’t some sort of mid-manager of the afterlife watching him do this, and slit the envelope open.

There was only a small piece of paper with a short message inside:

_ I know you don’t belong here.  _

_ Meet me at 9 pm tonight. Town square. _

Crowley was still standing and staring at the letter when Aziraphale returned an hour later; he pocketed the note and waved away the other man’s concerned questions as well as he could, but he couldn’t help the sense of impending doom building in his gut.

Nine p.m.: only six hours left before he was potentially kicked out of Paradise, forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!???!!!


	5. Conversations and Catastrophes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley tries to figure out who sent him the threatening note by following an unlikely ally around for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helllllloooo sorry for the huge wait! ya girl moved the second week of July and then was in and out of the hospital all last week and life is generally a nightmare, but hey ------
> 
>  
> 
> Welcome to the Good Place.  
> Everything is Fine.

It was with the note burning a hole in his pocket (and, judging by the constant rumbling he felt in his stomach, burning away at his gut lining as well) that Crowley went through the next few hours.

He tried, to his credit, he absolutely tried to put on a brave face for Aziraphale, but the other man would squint at him over his novel after reading a passage aloud, and Crowley would only offer him a thin, anxious smile in response to whatever Jamesian prose the man was talking about.

After about the fifteenth such similar situation, Aziraphale tossed the book aside with a huff.

“Really, Crowley!”

“Really what, angel?” Crowley blinked, shaken from his thought spiral of  _ someone knows, someone knows, someone knows,  _ for the time being. 

“You could at least  _ pretend  _ to pay attention!’ Aziraphale lifted his eyebrows in disbelief when Crowley made an indignant noise. “Oh, I could just -- what is the  _ name  _ of this novel?”

“The novel?” Crowley eyed the book which had, most regretfully, been placed cover down on the table next to Aziraphale. “Uhhh. That novel?”

“Yes, Crowley,  _ that  _ novel.” Aziraphale snagged it and clutched it to his chest, so there went Crowley’s first option of lunging forward to grab the novel and read the damn spine. “What’s it called?”

“Uh. It’s uh…” Crowley snapped his fingers. “A Picture of … of … someone, innit?”

“The  _ Portrait, _ ” Aziraphale sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as though Crowley’s answer had given him an intense headache.

“The  _ Portrait _ ,” Crowley crowed triumphantly. “That’s it!”

“The Portrait of Who?” Aziraphale asked snippily.

“Uh…”

“The Portrait of a  _ Lady _ , Crowley, honestly, you’re half a galaxy away right now!”

“Oh yeah, I’m off in the stars alright,” Crowley grumbled, flopping back down on the couch with dramatic flair. “Can’t think of anything else.”

He let his long limbs dangle over the back and sides of the couch, waiting for his misery to swallow him whole - clearly Aziraphale wasn’t buying his rouse, so maybe he should just give it up entirely.

“It’s not that boring,” Aziraphale was saying, and Crowley peeked over at him to see Aziraphale looking at him with exasperation and what couldn’t have been fondness, but looked an awful lot like it. “You can’t be that bored by Isabel, not when you’ve only just met her.”

Remembering their fight from only yesterday, Crowley grit his teeth and forced himself to be honest. Well. A version of honest. Close enough to honest.

“I’m not bored,” he said, “I’m distracted.”

“Because people who are bored never get distracted.” 

“Angel,” Crowley warned, and Aziraphale set the book aside again and clasped his hands in front of him, leaning forward and sighing with a great air of martyrdom.

_ Maybe that’s how he got to the Good Place,  _ Crowley thought mulishly,  _ by being a great, big, blond martyr.  _

“Why are you distracted this afternoon, Crowley? You were so eager to continue our lessons not even two hours ago.”

“I am eager to continue, it’s only --” Crowley shifted in his stretched out stance before giving up entirely and flailing to an upright position to pout at Aziraphale (not that he pouted, of course, no, he glared with great dignity). 

“It’s only what?”

He was spared, for once; Crowley was honestly spared by a knock at the door. 

Thinking it was the anonymous sender of the note, Crowley fell to the door and gasped, even as Aziraphale stood and cast a strange glance at him.

“Did you fall?” Aziraphale asked, already sweeping to the entrance.

“No!” Crowley clambered back onto the couch, kneeling and stretching his hand out with even more dramatic flair than before. Aziraphale paused with his hand on the doorknob and a frown on his face. “Don’t--”

“Yoo-hoo!” That didn’t sound like the celestial police come to drag him away. “Hello, boys!”

“Mary?” Aziraphale smiled, his rounded shoulders relaxing somewhat. “It’s just Mary, Crowley, pull yourself together!”

Crowley sagged in relief when the door opened and a solitary Mary walked through. 

“Good afternoon,” Aziraphale smiled down at her. “Please, do come in.”

Mary bounced inside, cooing at the foyer and its various accoutrements. “Oh, is that a clown?” She clapped her hands and pointed at the massive portrait of the clown that was haunting Crowley’s waking hours as well as his nightmares. 

_ Maybe the clown sent the note,  _ he thought hysterically.

His snort of laughter was caught by Mary, who beamed at him. “Is it your portrait, then?”

“Oh, it’s all Crowley’s,” Aziraphale assured her. “This cottage was designed with Anthony J. Crowley in mind.”

Crowley scowled at Aziraphale over Mary’s shoulder while she was distracted by the sculpture of a Monster can which inexplicably had been brought over by Anathema two weeks prior (she had  _ insisted  _ that Gabriel said Crowley absolutely had fifty installments by the artist during his life on earth, and Crowley had almost swallowed his tongue in horror; his horror was, of course, outmatched by the far more sensible and aesthetically geared Aziraphale).

Aziraphale shrugged helplessly and closed the door, walking forward to usher Mary into their living room. 

“The cottage doesn’t reflect you as well?” Mary frowned. “That’s odd - my townhouse seems perfect for me, but my darling Pierre doesn’t have anything besides a single prayer room that was installed by Anathema a few weeks back.”

“Perhaps the Good Place knows that we simply want our partners to be comfortable,” Aziraphale soothed. Mary nodded with a bright smile, and Crowley had to bite his tongue to not mention the small, adorable bookshop that had popped up overnight a month ago, a bookshop that Aziraphale most  _ certainly  _ was the proprietor of.

(“Shouldn’t we open it?” Crowley had asked at the time. “Y’know, for the neighborhood? Maybe that’s why Anathema created it?” Aziraphale had spluttered and blustered about how his tastes most likely wouldn’t align with the rest of the neighborhood, and how could he  _ possibly  _ charge their friends and neighbors for books, and did the Good Place even have currency? -- and had promptly smacked Crowley’s arm with a newspaper when Crowley had suggested,  _ gasp,  _ to give the books away for free).

“That must be it,” Mary agreed, turning away from the horrific front entryway art for the time being, and clapping her hands when she saw the layout of the living room. “Oh, you two read together? How cozy wozy!” 

She grabbed  _ The Portrait of a Lady  _ from the end table it had been abandoned on, and Crowley mouthed  _ cozy wozy?  _ over Mary’s shoulder. 

Aziraphale clearly bit back a snort of amusement, looking horrified with himself, and Crowley was able to smile proudly for having made the other man laugh; he fixed a less teasing look on his face when Mary straightened back out.

“Yes, well, my soulmate and I do like to be cozy, don’t we, angel?” Crowley smirked at Aziraphale, who oddly had turned pink.

Mary squealed delightedly. “It’s so sweet how you call each other pet names!” She sighed and set the book back down. “I only wonder what Pierre calls me in his head…”

“Perhaps he could write it down for you?” Aziraphale suggested, and Mary nodded morosely. 

Crowley wondered, perhaps, if Pierre could write in English, being French. Maybe something to bring up to Anathema later.

“What brings you here today, Mary?” Aziraphale glanced over at Crowley, expression inscrutable.

“I was going to go on a few house calls, and see how the neighborhood was doing.” She turned to Crowley with a smile. “And I remember Crowley saying that he adored chats with new people, so I thought I might stop by and offer to have you come with me!”

“I said that?” Crowley blinked in confusion, and Aziraphale shot him another withering look. “I mean - yeah, I said that!”

“I couldn’t quite remember it either, come to think of it,” Mary said, shaking her head in confusion. “But, Gabriel reminded me! It must have been at one of my parties!”

“Must have been,” Crowley agreed, souring at the thought of all the pointless drivel that came out of his mouth when he was forced to socialize.

But then, a thought occurred to him: if he went around the neighborhood with Mary, he might be able to figure out who had slipped him the threatening note. After all, he had a lifetime of experience in feeling other people’s hatred and disdain for him; surely he could pick up on it from his so-called friendly neighbors.

“You know what, Mary? I’d love to come.”

“You would?” Aziraphale asked, aghast.

“You would!” Mary clapped her hands excitedly.

“Mhm. Yep, love - chats. Yes, chat away. But, uh, do you think we could be back, by say,” he checked a wristwatch that was no longer there on his wrist, as whoever the Good Place thought Crowley was, was the kind of person who didn’t wear a wristwatch, “Half past eight?”

“Of course!” Mary was already bounding towards the door, full of that impossible energy of hers. “Let’s go chat, Crowley!’

“Yes,” he could already feel the stress headache mounting. “Let’s.”

He exchanged a brief look with Aziraphale, who looked taken aback but not unpleased by this change of events, and then followed Mary out the door and to his doom. 

Their first stop was at a manor up the road. The imposing gate that met with the streetside opened onto a massive, winding driveway that Crowley could only stare at in mystification. 

“Someone lives here?” He frowned, shoving his hands into the cotton atrocities The Good Place called pants. “Only one person?”

“No, silly,” Mary laughed delightedly. “Two someones live here! Sandalaphon and his soulmate, Saraqael. A lovely couple.”

“They’d have to be with that name,” Crowley grumbled, crossing the threshold and ignoring how the pretty flowers that lined the driveway wilted somewhat at his grumpy words. “Oh, hush,” he muttered to the begonias. 

Sandalaphon was just as creepy and bald as Crowley remembered from the first five times meeting him, but he forced himself to shake his hand and smile anyway; Saraqael was slightly less creepy than his soulmate, but in the way that someone who murdered puppies was slightly less creepy than someone who murdered people.

“So, what did you two do on Earth?” Crowley asked, after the pleasantries were out of the way, and muffins had been exchanged from Mary’s basket, almost like tickets to their goodwill.

Saraqael paused in splitting his muffin, his long, elegant fingers stilling. “I was a warden.”

“...A prison warden?” Crowley clarified, blinking in surprise.

“Yes.” Saraqael offered no other explanation, but smiled serenely and went back to picking his baked good apart piece by piece. 

“My soulmate rehabilitated some of the country’s worst offenders,” Sandalaphone said, smiling over at his much taller, much thinner soulmate. “People wouldn’t have gone near most of them with a fifty foot pole, but not my Saraqael. He thought there wasn’t a soul that wasn’t worth catching.”

Crowley frowned at the phrasing but nodded. 

“And how about you?” Mary asked, taking a muffin for herself, but only pretending to eat it. Crowley had already eaten four. He wondered if that, perhaps, was not the polite thing to do. 

_ Aziraphale must be rubbing off on me,  _ he thought, but then he blushed at the thought of Aziraphale rubbing off on him, and he almost missed Sandalaphon’s response as a result.

“I worked with law enforcement,” Sandalaphon explained, “Used my skills and knowledge in deception and psychology to catch quite a few baddies. Maybe even some that Saraqael met later down the line!” He looked delighted by the idea.

Crowley, personally, wasn’t sure why these two had managed to get into the Good Place when their acts on earth seemed to be limited to involvement in a typically forked up judicial system. It was weird, but then again if his lessons with Aziraphale were any indication, Crowley didn’t have the most active ideas of morality and right and wrong to begin with, so he shrugged and went back to his fourth (and final, if the way Mary slapped his hand away was any indication) muffin. 

Anyway, a prison warden and a human lie detector (and yikes on that one, he thought,  _ big  _ yikes), had gotten into the Good Place, but Crowley had it on very good authority from Anathema that Mozart and Van Gogh were both in the Bad Place. It seemed … odd.

“...and that’s when I knew I had to dedicate my life to helping those in need!” Mary finished triumphantly.

“Such a good soul,” Sandalaphon said with a wistful sigh.

“Absolutely golden,” Saraqael agreed.

“And you, Crowley.” Mary nudged him, and he was officially shaken from his train of thought. “Tell them what you did on earth.”

“Doctor,” he said, thinking back to his video and file that Aziraphale had showed him. “Pediatrics, worked with, uh, sick kids.”

“I always did love children,” Sandalaphon said encouragingly. 

“Yep, kids are great.” Crowley couldn’t sense any real animosity from either of the men in front of him, and his attention span was starting to wear thin, which made it all that much more difficult to pretend to be interested  _ and _ a good person.

“What was your favorite part?” Saraqael asked, fixing him with a look that seemed to cut straight through Crowley, to the core of him, and he froze.

“My favorite part?” He repeated, mouth dry.

“Of working with children?” Saraqael smiled so broadly, Crowley thought he could count all of his straight, white teeth. A frightening expression to be sure, but not necessarily a malicious one.

“Probably their, uh, smiles,” Crowley nodded as though agreeing with himself. “Yep, loved seeing a kid smile after I’d fixed ‘em. Sent ‘em on their way, and they’d be smiling, all wide and, and, toothy?”

“How sweet,” Mary said with a pat on his knee.

“The sweetest,” Sandalaphon agreed.

Saraqael just looked at Crowley.

As he and Mary walked down the massive driveway five minutes later, Crowley shivered and brushed at his arms as though pushing away the lingering feeling of Saraqael’s huge, dark eyes on him. 

“Did you get any weird vibes from those dorks?” Crowley jabbed a thumb over his shoulder towards the manor, and Mary gave him a strange look while the begonias withered and died entirely at Crowley’s left. 

“Weird...vibes?”

“Y’know, like they were … judging us, or something.” Crowley glanced over his shoulder and swore he saw the curtains in the front living room window shift, as though whoever had been standing there had stepped away very quickly and let the fabric fall back into place. 

“Oh, Crowley.” Mary gripped his arm and steered him down the street, ostensibly to their next stop and not, say, his execution. “I’ve felt much the same at times in my life.”

“Have you now?” Crowley sincerely doubted she’d felt the  _ exact _ same way as him, a literal fugitive from eternal justice.

“Yes.” Mary led them up the next massive driveway. “Feeling like an impostor was impossible to avoid in my first line of work - especially as a woman. I had to elbow my way to the top, and the best way to do that was to tell myself every day that I deserved to be there as much as any other man or woman.”

He didn’t have much to say to that, too surprised that Mary actually had (accidentally, of course) hit the nail on the head.

“Besides,” she added after ringing the doorbell. “This is the Good Place, darling! No one here is judging you!’

Before Crowley could comment on the unlikelihood of that, the door to the manor (even bigger than the last one) swung open, and Michael was standing there, a cool look on their perfectly calm face. 

“Mary,” they nodded at her before fixing Crowley with a look that made him feel as though he were some sort of unpleasant dog shirt that had gotten tracked in from the road. “...Crowley.”

They let them in, and Crowley had to suffer through a very uncomfortable, very polite quarter of an hour where he had to look around the fancy manor that housed the one person in The Good Place who spent almost as much time with Aziraphale as he did.

One notable absence in the opulence of Michael’s living room, and an absence that Crowley was all too pleased to note: not a single book of Aziraphale had found its way into Michael’s house, and Crowley decided not to look too closely at the thrill of jealous pleasure that curled down his spine at that realization.

When they went to their next house, and the next, and the next, Crowley continued to search for any kind of hatred or suspicion - but all he found were a gardener, a children’s author, and a scientist for NASA, as well as a charity director, a bicyclist who’d given away all his belongings to the poor, and a man from northern Siberia who’d never owned anything with any sort of electricity in it. 

Crowley was sure he liked the man from Siberia the best by the time eight o’clock rolled around. 

It was when they were returning to their homes that a familiar face appeared before them, and Crowley could kick himself for his bad luck - all day without a sighting, and Gabriel and his ridiculous lavender suit and far too chipper smile chose  _ this  _ moment to appear, this moment when he should be going home to lick his wounds and enjoy the last twenty minutes he had with Aziraphale before he was surely cast into the eternal flame for crimes he could barely find the energy to feel guilty for in the first place (so he was a generally sucky person on earth - whatever. He wasn’t a  _ monster.  _ There should be some sort of  _ Medium  _ Place, for people who sucked but who weren’t genocidal maniacs. Yeah, that’s what he’d suggest, right before they chucked him into the Not-Hell version of Hell they’d concocted).

“Mary Loquacious!” Gabriel jogged down the street towards them, and Crowley groaned quietly enough that his companion of the evening couldn’t hear him, “And Anthony Crowley, ugh, my good luck!”

“Hello, Gabriel!” Mary held up her basket of baked goods, which had dwindled down to bran and blueberry by this point. “Would you like a muffin?”

“A muffin?” Gabriel looked astounded at the idea. “Oh, I’ve read about these!”

He grabbed one and sniffed it, looking delighted and slightly confused as to what to do with it. 

“You eat it,” Crowley suggested. “Like--” he pantomimed putting something in his mouth, and Gabriel beamed at him before shoving the whole muffin into his face.

Absolutely none of it went into his mouth; and, annoyingly enough, Gabriel still looked impeccably good with butter and various crumbles smeared over the lower half of his face. 

“I hear you two were very busy today.” Gabriel beamed at both of them, his hands folded behind his back. “Befriending the neighborhood, were we?”

“Yes, I thought it might be nice to get to know everyone outside of the parties and galas,” Mary explained, and Gabriel nodded before looking at Crowley expectantly.

“Yeah, can’t ever … talk to people too much,” he muttered in what he hoped was some sort of convincing way when in reality he was entirely talked out and could do with never seeing another human for the next day...or century.

_ Maybe if I survive tonight I can nap for a century. That’s a thought. _

“No, I suppose you can’t,” Gabriel agreed. “And that reminds me, I’d love to talk to both of you! For the next few hours, if you don’t mind, there’s just some ideas I’d love to run by two of my favorite residents!”

“How lovely!” Mary chirped, and Crowley fought the urge to scream very loudly, for a very long time.

“I, uh,” he felt his toes squirming in his hideous canvas shoes. “I - promised Aziraphale I’d be home by half past.”

“Oh, you did!” Mary nodded, happy to be of help, and Crowley had never been so endeared to her. “It’s so sweet, how dedicated they are to each other,” she said to Gabriel conspiratorially, as though Crowley weren’t standing right forking there.

He forced himself to smile though because she  _ was  _ helping save his ash, and Gabriel waved a perfectly manicured hand at him.

“Go! Go home to your soulmate - Mary and I can entertain ourselves easily enough.”

“Excellent, right, uh - see you -” Crowley muttered an ineffectual goodbye before walking away from the pair with as much speed that could be considered normal and not desperate flight.

He didn’t even spare them a glance over his shoulder as he sped away through the growing twilight, and he found himself in front of the cottage not ten minutes later. 

It must have been twenty-five minutes to nine at this point, and he reasonably needed fifteen to get to the town square. Crowley thought for a moment that he needed to turn around and head to his fate, but it occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Aziraphale in almost four hours, and that if he simply vanished into the Bad Place or wherever people who lied about their identity in the Good Place went (maybe a void? Maybe he’d be erased entirely?), Aziraphale would only have a tense conversation about Henry James as a memory of him, and for some reason, the thought didn’t sit right with him at all.

So, he decided to use some of his potentially final minutes in the Good Place to see the fussy professor one last time.

He pushed the door open and saw Aziraphale curled up on his sofa, feet tucked underneath him, a soft blanket over his lap; the reading lamp was on next to him as it often was, and his glasses were perched at the end of his adorable, snub nose. With the light on behind him, Aziraphale’s curls were backlit by what could have been a holy light, giving him the appearance of the angel, and Crowley’s throat felt inexplicably tight when he thought that he should have to turn his back on this in a few moments to face whatever was waiting for him in the town square.

Madly, he thought he might tell Aziraphale, show him the letter, and beg him to come with him, but hadn’t he risked enough for Crowley already? How much more selfish could he be in endangering Aziraphale in his desperate scheme to avoid damnation. If this were anyone else - and Crowley meant  _ anyone  _ else, his gran, his flatmate, his vicar - he would have no problem using their relationship to get what he needed, but something about Aziraphale made him want to stop and figure out what it was that Aziraphale might want in return.

And, he might not ever get the chance to figure that out, now.

“Close the door, dear,” Aziraphale glanced up from his book briefly, and Crowley found himself still fixed to the spot. “You’re letting in the bugs.”

“There’s no bugs,” Crowley muttered. “It’s the Good Place.”

Still though, Aziraphale had asked, and asked so nicely, so he obliged, and when the door was shut firmly behind him, Aziraphale looked up again with a small smile on his lips. 

The smile fell away quickly as Crowley stepped further into the cottage and Aziraphale got a better look at him.

“What happened?” He asked, concern etched into the corners of his mouth. “Crowley?”

“Long day is all,” Crowley said, and it was a half-truth, everything he was omitting weighing on him heavily. “Need to - to clear my head.”

“Do you want to hear what I’m reading?” Aziraphale asked, holding up the thick tome resting on his lap. “There’s some delightful passages coming up.”

“I would love to, angel,” Crowley said, his throat thick, and it was a full truth that time. “But - I’m  - I need to clear my head on my own, yeah?”

“Yes, of course.” Aziraphale glanced up at him through his lashes, looking somewhat ruffled and hurt by Crowley’s rejection, and it tore away at Crowley like threatening notes and busybody neighbors never could.

“Hey.” He reached out on some buried instinct and trailed his fingers along Aziraphale’s jaw, turning his face up slightly. The light of the lamp glanced off of the lenses, making it almost impossible to see the clear blue of Aziraphale’s eyes, and Crowley looked down even though it threatened to blind him. “I mean it. I really would love to, it’s just …”

“A long day,” Aziraphale finished for him when he couldn’t. “So I hear. Alright, dear - are you going for a walk, then, or do you want to retire to bed early?”

Crowley smiled at his old-fashioned choice of words and shrugged with one shoulder. He didn’t move his fingers from Aziraphale’s face, and the man didn’t move away from him either, his warmth leaking into Crowley’s skin in an entirely distracting way.

“I think I’ll take a walk, angel.”

“I’ll go with you, if you’d like?”

Crowley swallowed past the lump in his throat. He had no doubts Aziraphale would come with im if he knew the truth, and that was precisely why Crowley couldn’t tell him; Aziraphale was pure, and selfless, and  _ good,  _ and he deserved a chance to stay here. Maybe if whoever sent the letter was merciful, they might believe Crowley if he lied and said Aziraphale had nothing to do with his deception.

“Maybe next time,” he said instead, letting his fingers trace over Aziraphale’s round cheek, his skin soft and achingly tempting under his fingertips.

“Next time,” Aziraphale agreed, leaning out of the light so his blue eyes were suddenly much clearer, and Crowley wasn’t sure what he saw in them then. 

Aziraphale’s pudgy but elegant fingers wrapped around Crowley’s wrist, as though holding him in place, and Crowley’s fingers twitched in response. He pulled away reluctantly, and pretended he didn’t see how Aziraphale’s fingers lingered where the ghost of his own would be.

“Bye, angel.”

“I’ll see you when you get back,” Aziraphale said with a strangely nervous smile, and Crowley nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets once again if only to stop himself from reaching out one last time.

“When I get back,” he echoed, and he turned and walked away, not stopping to breathe or even feel the ache in his fingers until he was well down the block and on his way to the town square.

The brisk evening air felt good against his over-warm face, and Crowley breathed through his nose in an effort to calm down. He would face this head-on, he figured, with all the dignity and courage he’d never shown in his life on earth; he’d do this proudly, for Aziraphale, and he didn’t care how scary or hellish the Bad Place turned out to be if it meant Aziraphale didn’t catch any censure for his part in the lie.

Thinking about Aziraphale made him want to turn around and head back to the warm cottage with its warm blankets and warm lights and warm professors, so Crowley planted his feet, ignored the pang in his gut, and waited for nine o’clock with all the strength and determination he could muster.

The clock tower across the village rang out the hour, and no one appeared. Crowley frowned, turning this way and that, but still, no sign of anyone.

Five minutes passed. Another five. Crowley grit his teeth. “This is a shirt prank,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets and kicking savagely at a nearby lamppost. “Completely, forking, ridiculous --  _ Fork _ ”

He turned halfway around and spotted a figure pulling away from the shadows, and he stared at them in shock and then in recognition as the man came into focus at the edge of the town square.

“Pierre?” Crowley could honestly say he’d never been so surprised in his entire life. “What are you doing here?”

“My name isn’t Pierre,” Mary’s soulmate said carefully, in a thick London accent. “It’s Newt. Newton Pulsifer, and I know you don’t belong here.”

_ Secret agent,  _ Crowley’s mind supplied ridiculously.  _ It’s a trap.  _

“Wha-” he said intelligently.

“You have to help me,” Newt said, his eyes wide and terrified behind his glasses. “Because I don’t belong here either - they all think I’m a monk, and I’m a - a- a-”

“Polygamist?” Crowley guessed.

“I’m an arsonist,” Newt hissed, and Crowley felt the stress headache that had been building all day finally blossom and spill through his head like the worst possible kind of party foul. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, Newt.
> 
>  
> 
> I really truly hope the next chapter is up sooner, but like I said, I've been having a fairly serious medical issue that might drain me some more (I've been sleeping twenty hours a day since getting out of the hospital), so I'm sorry sorry sorry for how slow the updates are! I hope you guys enjoyed!
> 
>  
> 
> (And, I do want to point out that this follows the trajectory of TGP, and if you've seen it, you know that this means some.....things are coming our heroes' way, and if you haven't seen it, please know that you're going to be MASSIVELY spoiled for the show !!!!!!)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading xox


End file.
